


The Hole Where You Belong

by ElizabethWilde



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Friendship, Grief, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 00:40:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1878477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizabethWilde/pseuds/ElizabethWilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Clint has spent the whole time so focused on the idea of saving the world and taking Loki down that it’s not until she says something that he realizes he didn’t hear Phil’s voice in his ear during the fight. Not once.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hole Where You Belong

**Author's Note:**

> No beta. I’d actually set myself down to write a really fluffy Capsicoul fic, and this happened instead. Apparently I have feels today.

Natasha tells him when the battle is over. Clint has spent the whole time so focused on the idea of saving the world and taking Loki down that it’s not until she says something that he realizes he didn’t hear Phil’s voice in his ear during the fight. Not once. He can’t breathe at first, just shakes his head. She tells him he doesn’t have to go out with the others, doesn’t have to pretend that it’s okay. Clint shakes his head again and woodenly follows the group to one of Tony’s limos. Leave it to Tony to drive a limo through a war zone to what has to be the diviest-looking shwarma place in all of New York. 

Clint makes himself eat. He takes bites, chews, swallows. He’s capable of doing all of those things because Natasha never stops touching. Always her hand is on his arm, his leg. She keeps him grounded in the moment precisely the way he needs her to. He doesn’t thank her. She won’t need it, and they’re bad with words. They’re better at doing. “I need to go,” he finally manages, food forgotten on the table as he stands in a daze. 

“We’ll be close,” Natasha assures Steve as she leads Clint from the restaurant by the arm without a word. He isn’t aware of her stuffing them into a cab, but she does it, and they drive through the streets. Clint curls up into the woman and closes his eyes to shut out the world as much as he can. 

He follows without protest. He lets himself be led. The more he thinks, the more he’ll feel it. Only when he sees the door does Clint balk. “Tasha, not here, not-”

“It’s the only place you might sleep. Come on.” 

Clint is shaking by the time she opens the door. He wonders when she took his key, then he wonders if it’s Phil’s key, and that’s even worse. “Please-”

“You need to be home.”

The tears are streaming down his face by the time they’re inside. Everything looks normal. Everything looks like it would if Phil was going to walk in the door a few hours later. He’d have every bit of his paperwork done. He’d have his tie loose and his jacket off, and maybe he’d even have a pizza for them to share. The sob takes him by surprise, but not Natasha. She’s holding him and whispering soft words in Russian that he can’t understand and doesn’t need to. She makes him take a shower, and the smell of Phil’s soap makes it worse for awhile, then better, and by the time he gets out, Clint is still crying, but he isn’t shaking like a leaf anymore.

Natasha managed to make them tea and grilled cheese, and Clint actually lets himself laugh at the cliche before he tucks in. He’d barely touched the shwarma. He’s hungry despite feeling sick at the same time, so he shovels the sandwich in and then sips the tea. Phil had picked it out, something with vanilla that’s actually a lot better than Clint had thought it could be. “It’s real?” 

“It’s real,” Natasha answered with a catch in her voice. She hesitates and seems to be working something out. “We could go to see-”

“No. God, no,” Clint answers with a shudder. “I believe you. I don’t want to… bad enough in my head. I don’t want to.” He looked momentarily horrified. “God, I should want to, shouldn’t I? Normal people want-”

“We aren’t normal. And he wouldn’t want you remembering that way either.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Clint looks soothed by the words and goes back to sipping his tea. He holds out for about ten minutes before he whispers, “Get the book for me?”

Natasha nods. Agents of SHIELD are supposed to be careful. They leave relatively little mark on the world. They hide what they do leave. The book is in a safe well hidden in the row house. There’s cash and weapons and documents and a photo album with a well-loved cover. She brings it to Clint and takes the empty mugs to put them in the dishwasher. 

Clint stares at every page like he doesn’t understand what he’s seeing. Most of the pictures are awkward, one or the other of them. There are a few scattered throughout taken by Natasha when the three of them were together for one reason or another. “He wasn’t supposed to die. I was supposed to get taken out on a mission or something. I’m not supposed to be doing this.” 

Clint’s staring hard at one of the later pages in the book, a picture of the two of them grinning like idiots. Natasha had taken it. They’re at the park and look happy in a way only people who think they have forever can be. Marriage hadn’t been legal, but that hadn’t kept them from holding their own ceremony, from quietly committing to each other with Natasha looking on and smiling. It had been perfect. No one knew, and it didn’t matter. The three of them knew. Fury probably knew, but no one ever said anything so far as Clint knew. There were no rings and no paperwork, just words and kisses and the spring sun, and that was enough. He feels Natasha gently moving the book farther away on the counter before he realizes he’s descended into the gut-wrenching sobs again. She’s curling her arms around him and holding him, and that helps. Eventually Clint gets a hold of himself. “How am I supposed to do this without him?”

“One day at a time.”

“Like an alcoholic.” 

“Like an alcoholic,” Natasha agrees firmly. “You keep going, and you keep being the best agent you know how to be, and that’s all there is to it. You live.” 

“He doesn’t.”

Natasha nods again, nothing cold in it, just the same sure sort of calm. “He doesn’t.”

Clint feels like he might freak out again, but it passes. He’s too tired to freak out, and he’s only just feeling every ache and pain from his abused body. “Don’t leave, Tasha.”

“I’m not going to until you’re ready.” It’s as simple as that. She strips down when they get to the bedroom with cool efficiency that’s anything but sexual and steals one of Clint’s shirts to sleep in. It isn’t the first time she’s stayed over. Clint doesn’t like sleeping alone, so when Phil is out and he’s alone, she stays sometimes. Clint wonders how long it will be until he’s ready. He wonders if he’ll ever be ready. 

He takes Phil’s side of the bed and actually whimpers at the familiar feel and smell as he buries his face in the man’s pillow. Natasha says nothing, just climbs in on his side and rests a hand on his hip. Clint just lets her. He lays there, and he breathes. It hurts with every inhale and more on every exhale, and he breathes. It’s all he can do.


End file.
